Listening to live music is an essential Nashville experience. One of the most popular places to do that is the Blue Bird Cafe. But its huge popularity and small size make it very difficult to get tickets. I set an alarm for the day tickets were released for our dates and logged on a few minutes before 9am. As soon as they became available, I put the tickets in my cart, but by the time I clicked check out, I got a message that they were sold out. It was 9:02. So… on to plan B! I did some reading …

Since I hadn’t been to Nashville in over 20 years, I wanted a high level tour of the city to help us get the lay of the land and see where the major sites were to determine what we wanted to visit later. There are lots of different city tour options, but many of them involve adult beverages and entertainment. Of the more family-friendly options, I narrowed it down to the Hop On Hop Off Trolley Tour and the Joyride Golf Cart Tour. I decided on the golf cart tour because I thought it would offer a more personalized experience. …

Music is Nashville’s heart and soul. There are two main music-related strips in Nashville – Music Row and Broadway. If Broadway is the partier of the family, Music Row is the more serious cousin. It is in a quiet part of town and is where the recording studios, record label offices, and radio stations are located. Broadway, on the other hand, runs through the heart of downtown and is the lifeblood of the city. Also known as Honky Tonk Highway, Broadway is loud, bright, and crowded. “Colorful” takes on multiple meanings on Broadway, from the bright purple building that houses …

After our big ski trip to Keystone last year, we were underwhelmed at the thought of spending this President’s Day skiing in North Carolina’s mountains. We wanted a bigger mountain but a trip out west wasn’t in the cards for this year. We had always heard that Snowshoe WV was the best skiing in the southeast so we decided to check it out. Compared to the NC ski resorts or even to Winterplace WV, Snowshoe is definitely a step up in ski experiences. The three biggest factors differentiating Snowshoe from its competitors in the southeast are the size of the mountain, …

The drive between NC and NJ is becoming old hat to us now and we are running out of options for places to stop and break up the trip. Three years ago we stopped at Luray Caverns and my oldest son declared it “the coolest thing he had ever done” at the time. Since I was coming up empty on new ideas for a mid-way stop, I figured we would check out one of the other caverns in the area. Grand Caverns is the oldest “show cave” in the US. Discovered in 1804, tours began 2 years later and have …

My boys have long loved looking for shark’s teeth on the beach so I decided to try to find a good spot in NJ to go hunting for them. Imagine my surprise when a google search for NJ shark teeth popped up not a beach but a creek 15 miles inland. Big Brook Preserve is located in Colts Neck, NJ and is home to fossils that date back to the late Cretaceous Period (67-74 million years ago). During the Cretaceous period, NJ was submerged underwater. Prehistoric animal remains that were left on the sea floor became buried over time under the …

We’ve made the trip between Ocean City, MD and central NJ dozens of times. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said “we should try the ferry one trip.” Well, we finally did it! The Cape May – Lewes Ferry goes between… Cape May, NJ and Lewes, DE obviously. 🙂 Connecting the tip of NJ to the nearest point across the Delaware Bay, the 85 minute ferry ride takes both automobiles and walk-on passengers across the bay. A one-way tickets costs $37 per vehicle and $10 per person ages 14 and up (children 6-13 are $4 and under 6 …

After years of driving past the Ocean Downs Casino while visiting family in Ocean Pines, we finally went to watch the horses race. Although the casino is the main attraction at Ocean Downs, that is obviously not a family-friendly activity. But watching the ponies definitely is! We arrived a little early and were surprised at all of the family-oriented activities setup in the grandstand. Both a magician and a juggler were on-hand to entertain the kids, and they both really delivered. Cascading Carlos is a two time Guinness World Record holder for his amazing juggling feats. His first record is …

I grew up going skiing in Vermont every February and was lucky enough to go skiing in Colorado and Utah a few times in my young adulthood. Living in the south, our skiing options are nowhere near as impressive. We’ve taken the kids to various ski resorts in North Carolina and West Virginia but felt like they were ready for the next step. We started looking at options out west for a President’s Day weekend trip and decided on Keystone, CO. Keystone boasts three mountain peaks with a combined 130 trails. Located an hour and a half from Denver at …

For a variety of reasons, we haven’t flown from NC to NJ to visit family since the pandemic started. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t visited! It just means that we’ve driven. A lot. We normally like to break up the drive but are starting to run out of midway points of interest. Charlottesville was one of the last remaining places on our idea list of stops so we headed there for an overnight on our drive back to NC after Christmas. We decided to leave NJ early enough to visit Monticello that afternoon. The historic site has several ticket …